ThemeV: The Old Engish grammar

Questions

1. 
   The historical conditions account increased dialectal divergence in Early ME?
   
2. 
   Compare the position of the Old Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman (French) in Early ME (comment on the geographical, social and linguistic differences).
   
3. 
   Account for the shift of the dialect type of the speech of London in the 14th c. Why is the name ‘English’ language more justified than ‘Anglo-Saxon’ or ‘Saxon’ those in the OE period on of the Saxon dialects, West Saxon was main from of language used in writing?
   
4. 
   Describe the events of external history which favoured the growth of the national literary language.
   
5. 
   Can the evolution of language be controlled by man? Recall efforts made by man-of-letters in the ‘Normalization period’ to stop the changes and improve the language.
   

Key words

Scandinavian Invasions – Скандинав босқинчилиги;

The Norman Conquest – Норманд истилоси;
Written Standard – ёзув стандарти.

Lecture VIII

Theme: Middle English phonetics
Plans:

1. 
   Spelling changes in ME.
   
2. 
   Evolution of the sound in ME.
   

Literature
1. Алексеева И.В. Древнеанглийский язык. –M.: Просвещение, 1971. –270 с.
2. Линский В.Я. Сборник упражнений по истории английского языка. –Л.: ЛГУ, 1983. –
164 с.
3. Резник Р.В., Сорокина Т.А., Резник И.В. История английского языка (на английском
языке). –2-е изд. –М.: Флинта: Наука, 2003. –496 с.
4. Fisiak J. A Short Grammar of Middle English. –Warszawa: PWN, 1970. –139 с.
5. Ilyish B. History of the English language. –Л.: Просвещение, 1973. –332 с.
6. Ilyish B. The Structures of Modern English. –Л.: Просвещение, 1965. –378 с.
7. Mortan A. L. A People’s History of England. –NY: International Publishers, 1974. –590 p.
8. Rastorguyeva T.A. A History of English. –M.: Vysšaja škola, 1983. –347 pp.
9. Zaitseva S. D. Early Britain. –M.: Просвещение, 1975. –254 с.
1. The most conspicuous feature of late ME texts in comparison with OE texts is the difference in spelling. The written forms of the words in Late ME texts resemble their modern forms, though the pronunciation of the words was different. Before considering the evolution of English sounds one must get acquainted with the system of ME spelling in order to distinguish between sound changes and graphical changes.
After the period of Anglo-Norman dominance (11^th – 13^th c.) English regained its prestige as the language of writing, though for a long time writing was in the hands of those who had a good knowledge of French. Therefore many innovations in ME spelling reveal an influence of the French scribal tradition. The diagraphs ou, ie, and ch which occurred in many French borrowings and were regularly used in Anglo-Norman texts were adopted as new of indicating the sounds [u:], [e:], and [ts].
Some replacements were probably made to avoid confusion of resembling letters: thus o was employed not only for [o] but also to indicate short [u] alongside the letter u; it happened when u stood close to n, m, or v, for they were all made up of down strokes and were hard to distinguish in a hand-written text. That is how OE munuc became ME monk, though it was pronounced as [munk] and OE lufu became ME love [luve] (NE monk, love). This replacement was facilitated – if not caused – by the similar use of the letter o in Anglo-Norman.

Peculiarities of Middle English Spelling

Letters indicating vowels	Letters indicating consonants
Single letters a [a] y, as well as i [i] o [o] or [u] Diagraphs ee [e:] or [e:] ie [e:] oo [o:] or [e:] ou [u:] or [ou] ow [u:] or [ou]	c [s] or [k] f [f] g [dз] or [g] j [dз] k [k] s [s] or [z] v (often spelt as u) [v] y [j] ch, tch [ts] dg [dз] gh [x] or [x’] qu [kw] th [Ө] or [ð] sh, sch, ssh [s] wh [hw]

2. The evolution system of the English language has undergone profound changes in the thousand years which have elapsed since the OE period. The changes affected the pronunciation of words, word accentuation, the systems of vowel and consonant phonemes.

In so far as possible the sound changes in the following survey are grouped into main stages: Early ME changes, which show the transition from Written OE to Late ME – the age of literary flourishing or ‘the age of Chaucer’ – and Early NE changes, which show the transition from ME to later NE.
Extensive changes of vowels are one of the most remarkable features of English linguistic history. A variety of changes affected vowels in stressed syllables; the modification of unaccented vowels was more uniform and simple. It is convenient to begin the description of vowel changes with unstressed vowels, for they will be found in many examples given for other purposes and should therefore be made clear in advance. It should be borne in mind, however, that the boundaries between stressed and unstressed vowels were not static: in the course if time a vowel could lose or acquire stress. As in many words stress was shifted; consequently, the vowel would pass into the other group and would be subjected to other kind of changes.
In Early ME the pronunciation of unstressed syllables became increasingly indistinct. As compared to OE, which distinguished five short vowels in unstressed position (representing three opposed phonemes [e/i], [a] and [o/u], Late ME had only two vowels in unaccented syllables: [ә] and [i], which are never directly contrasted; this means that phonemic contrasts in unstressed vowels had been practically lost.
At the end of OE and in the immediately succeeding centuries accented vowels underwent a number of quantitative changes which affected the employment and the phonological status of short and long vowels in the language. It should be recalled that in OE quantity was the main basis of correlation in the vowel system: short vowels were phonemically opposed to long ones, roughly identical in quality. At that time vowel length was for the most part an inherited feature: OE short vowels had developed from PG short vowels, while long ones went back to long vowels or bi-phonemic vowel sequences, except for a few lengthening, mainly due to the loss of consonants.
Qualitative vowel changes in Early ME were less important. They affected several monophthongs and displayed considerable dialectal diversity. On the whole they were independent of phonetic environment. The close labialized vowels [y] and [y:] in ME can be regarded as evidence of growing dialectal divergence. At the same time it is a relatively rare instance of similar alterations of a short and a long vowel.
One of the most important sound changes of the Early ME period was the loss of OE diphthongs and the growth of new diphthongs, with new qualitative and quantitative distinctions. OE possessed a well developed system of diphthongs: falling diphthongs with a closer nucleus and more open glide arranged in two symmetrical sets – long and short: [ea:, eo:, ie:] and [ea, eo, ie].
To sum up the Early ME vowels changes the system of vowels in Late ME is given table.

Monophthongs	Diphthongs
Short: i, e, a, o, u	ei, ai, oi, au au, ou
Long: i:, e:, e:, a:, o:, u: